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amillionlanguages · 2 years
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It aggravates me how little of the vast amounts of knowledge there is out there that I am able to gather as an individual. I want to know the world's secrets, to deeply understand the histories and cultures and languages and stories of every inch of the universe.
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amillionlanguages · 2 years
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My current language learning routine for ASL and Spanish
Start by reading my “word of the day” emails from SpanishDict and SignSchool that have a new vocabulary word featured along with their meanings
While walking to class or waiting I do conjugation practice on the app ConjuGato. I try to get to at least 50 conjugations a day so that they become more and more automatically produced. I got the premium version of the app since I quickly saw how much this format helped me, and I definitely think it’s been a good investment for my language learning so far!
I also have been listening to most of my music in Spanish, especially while I’m working out at the gym to increase my passive reception time, and soon I hope to move to watching more TV/Netflix and YouTube channels in Spanish as well
I try to spend at least 10 mins a day in the afternoon doing some Duolingo practice for Spanish, and watch an approximately 10 minute video on either ASL vocabulary or grammar while following along signing
And that’s pretty much it! Sometimes I’ll write a journal entry in Spanish, have a pretend conversation signing in ASL, watch more extended video lessons in either language, or do something else like that, but usually I try to keep it fairly simple and not very time-consuming.
These couple of things combined with consistency are helping me to improve quite a lot, and I’m excited for where it takes me!
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amillionlanguages · 2 years
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Do you have any good resources for learning Latin? I sorta gave up on romance languages after I failed French but I’m gonna take history at college and I think it would be really insightful to know (even a little bit of) Latin. Any apps/websites are appreciated!
Definitely! I made a post on this a long while back but it's definitely time to update with some more current resources :)
Langblrs:
@yun-min
@wannabinteiiectual
@attemptinglatin
@neoteroi-suggestions
Websites & Apps:
Latin Wikipedia - website
Latin Resources Google Drive (courtesy of @neoteroi-suggestions) - website
Free Latin Textbooks - website
Whitaker's Words - website
Latinitium Dictionary Search - website
Clozemaster Latin - website
Legentibus - Google Play or iOS app
Latin English Dictionary - iOS app
Podcasts & Youtube Channels:
LatinTutorial - YouTube
Easy Latin - YouTube
Nicholas Oultan - YouTube
Latin Per Diem - YouTube
Latinum - YouTube
Quintilian - podcast
Satura Lanx - podcast
Not gonna lie this made me wanna learn Latin again lol I know I should just stick to the two I'm working on but gahhhh I just want to know all the languages out there! Best of luck!
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amillionlanguages · 2 years
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Resources I'm using to learn ASL!
ASL is American Sign Language and it's a beautiful and complex visual language used primarily by Deaf and Hard of Hearing people. I've been studying it for about 3 months now and have completely fallen in love with it! My roommate and his gf both know varying levels of ASL (she's fluent and he's around my level) so it's been great to practice with them when we're able.
A lot of my language progress has been coming from youtube videos and practicing by myself (especially in a mirror or recording myself) so I wanted to share some of the resources I've found particularly helpful!
HandSpeak ASL Dictionary: This is a great database where you can look up how to sign various words
What The Deaf?! Podcast: A podcast run by two Deaf women talking about various aspects of their lives, gives some insight into Deaf culture and their lived experiences
ASL Fingerspelling Receptive Practice: They show short videos of a fingerspelled word that you then type out to see if you interpreted it correctly. Fingerspelling is a super important skill in ASL so I highly recommend practicing either with sites like this or through other resources meant for receptive practice!
Bill Vicars ASL 1 YouTube Lessons: These are more extended lessons taught entirely through sign while still being largely understandable. I recommend checking these out once you have a little more of a foundation in vocabulary so you can follow along better!
Chris Gorges ASL Basics YouTube Lessons: He gives clear and concise explanations for a lot of different concepts. I went through all of the videos in this playlist which helped me build up my vocabulary quickly
The Daily Moth YouTube Channel: They produce daily news segments signed in ASL with captions, which I’ve found is great for receptive practice and semi-immersion even though they still go quite fast for my current level
I hope some of you find these resources helpful, and it would be awesome if anyone else learning ASL could reply with some other resources you've found beneficial too!
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amillionlanguages · 2 years
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By the end of this year...
I am determined to get to level 3 in ASL (currently level 1 I think) and to B2 in Spanish (currently around A2). I dedicate myself to these languages and to doing the best I can to reach these goals by working towards them every day
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amillionlanguages · 2 years
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Ted Talks for aspiring polyglots
I love these all for various reasons so I highly recommend checking them out!
How to learn any language in six months — Chris Lonsdale
The secrets of learning a new language — Lýdia Machová
How to learn any language easily — Matthew Youlden
Why We Struggle Learning Languages — Gabriel Wyner
Learning a language? Speak it like you’re playing a video game — Marianna Pascal
Hacking language learning — Benny Lewis
How to Talk Like a Native Speaker — Marc Green
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amillionlanguages · 2 years
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One Year of Languages
Going to try @amillionlanguages' One Year of Languages challenge, here are my rough goals for 2022!
January: Spanish
February: Arabic
March: Swedish
April: ASL
May: Russian
June: Czech
July: Northern Sami
August: Japanese
September: Hungarian
October: Mandarin
November: Serbo-Croatian
December: Yiddish
My alternatives are: French, German, Swahili, Catalan, or going back to Portuguese.
My daily goals are:
Do at least one lesson each day at the minimum
Watch or read educational content (on pronunciation, grammar, culture, etc.)
Try to write and/or speak a few sentences
Listen to music or watch non educational videos in target language (probably not every day but still frequent)
And an optional goal is to play a game with at least the ui in a target language! Can't do it with all of them of course but Spanish, Russian, Japanese, and Mandarin I feel will have plenty of games translated to them :)
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amillionlanguages · 3 years
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1 Year of Languages Challenge Masterpost!
#1YearOfLangs is a challenge that I created in December of 2018 and did throughout 2019. I’ve had a lot of fun and have learned a lot throughout the year-long language learning challenge, and I’ll be doing it again in 2020 (with some modifications)! I wanted to create a central post with all the info about the challenge, so that’s what this is!
The general premise of the challenge is to learn a new language every month for a year! Yes, that’s a lot, but it helps a lot to learn what languages you’re interested in pursuing in the future. You can also see connections between different languages which is really interesting
Here’s the post with the original guidelines
Here’s my 2019 challenge recap post
Here are some alternative variations of the challenge (with different lengths of time spent on each language)
Here’s a list of resources for the challenge
Here’s a 1-month language learning prompt list for #1MonthOfLangs
Here’s 2+ months worth of language learning prompts
Here’s what a realistic day of the challenge looks like
Here’s what I’m planning to do for the challenge in 2020
I’ll try to keep this updated as I make more posts but here’s what I have so far! Hopefully y’all find this helpful lol let me know if there’s any specific resource that you’d like me to find or make!!!! I want to help you all as much as possible so PLEASE let me know if there’s any way that I can help support you and get you more resources!
All love <3
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amillionlanguages · 3 years
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Hebrew Lesson 1 - Letters אותיות /otiyot/
Hi everyone, and welcome to my first lesson for learning Hebrew! I want to cover all the basics as a resource and hopefully move on to more interesting grammar points, vocabulary lists, slang, and cultural points. I plan on posting about once or twice a week, and each post will have tags to help sort through them. Without further ado!
To be able to read and study Hebrew independently, we need to look at the Hebrew /alef.bet/, or the Hebrew alphabet. Hebrew has 22 letters in total, with some letters having a second form. The letters as they appear in the dictionary are as follows. Remember that Hebrew is read from right to left. 
א ב ג ד ה ו ז ח ט י כ ל מ נ ס ע פ צ ק ר ש ת
I’ve grouped them into sets depending on difficulty, or how complicated the letter can be. 
No Drama Letters
ג - called /gimel/, and is always pronounced as a hard /g/ as in goat or go
ד - called /dalet/, is pronounced as the /d/ in dog
ז - called /zayn/, is pronounced as the /z/ in zoo
ח - called /xet/, is the the guttoral hacking sound like in the German Bach. It’s a sound made at the back of the throat with turbulence. In transcription, I’ll be writing an /x/ for this letter.
ט - called /tet/, is pronounced as /t/ in tip
ל - called /lamed/, is pronounced as the /l/ in lip
ס - called /samex/, is pronounced as the /s/ in sea
ק - called /kuf/, is pronounced as the /k/ in key. 
ר - called /resh/, is can be pronounced as either the growled French/German /r/ or the trilled Spanish/Russian /r/. But store bought will do just as fine.
ת - called /tav/, is pronounced as the /t/ in tip
And Dot Your P’s
Some letters will have their sound change depending on whether or not a דגש /dagesh/ is present. A /dagesh/ is dot found in the middle of the letter. In normal typeset, the /dagesh/ is not written, so its presence has to either be rote memorized or be expected by understanding some phonological rules, which I’ll get to hopefully in a later post.
בּ כּ פּ
ב - called /bet/, can be pronounced as either the /b/ in bed with the dagesh or the /v/ in vet without
כ - called /kaf/, can be pronounced as either the /k/ in kite with the dagesh or the /x/ in the German Bach without.
פ - called /pe/, can be pronunced as either the /p/ in piano with the dagesh or the /f/ in flow without.
My Final Form
כ - We already saw /kaf/ above, but not only does it have two sounds depending on whether it has a /dagesh/ or not, it also has two forms. The first is כ is appears either by itself, at the beginning or in the middle of a word. The second form is ך, and appears only at the end of the word, it also is always pronounced as a /x/.
מ - called /mem/, is pronounced as the /m/ in mat. The non-final form is מ and the final form is ם
נ - called /nun/, is pronounced as the /n/ in nap. The non-final form is נ and the final form is ן
פ - Like /kaf/, we saw pe above. The non-final form is פ and the final form is ף and is always pronounced as an /f/ in fit. 
צ - called /tsade/, is pronounced as the /ts/ in cats. The non-final form is צ and the final form is ץ
A Little Bit Extra
א - called /alef/, it has no sound on its own, rather it carries or precedes a vowel, which we’ll learn in our next lesson
ה - called /he/, is pronounced as the /h/ in hat. However at the end of words it’s generally not pronounced.
ו - called /vav/, is pronounced as the /v/ in vote. Often however, it carries a vowel like alef, and stands for an /o/ or /u/ sound.
י - called /yud/, is pronounced as the /y/ in yarn. Like alef and vav, it carries a vowel sometimes, and stands for an /e/ or /i/ sound.
ע - called /‘ayn/, it acts similar to alef, carrying a vowel. In transcription, I’ll be adding an apostrophe to differentiate it from an /alef/  
ש - called /shin/, is similar to the letters with/without the /dagesh/, and can be pronounced two different ways. In כתיב מנוקד /ktiv menukad/ if a dot is found above the upper right, it is called /shin/ and pronounced as the /sh/ in sheets. If a dot is found above the upper left, it is called /sin/ and pronounced as the /s/ in soak. 
Transformers, Letters in Disguise
As a final list to round out the /aleph.bet/, there are extra notations to represent some international sounds. A גרש /geresh/ or apostrophe is added after the letter.
ג׳ - is pronounced as the j in jam
ז׳ - is pronounced as the s in pleasure
צ׳ - is pronounced as the ch in chat
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amillionlanguages · 3 years
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Bonjour, I love Halloween because horror is my favourite movie genre (especially slasher). I’ve already noted some French horrors that I wanna watch but if anyone has any recommendations, please let me know!
Halloween - Halloween (but pronounce it like “a lo ween”)
Friandises ou bêtises / des bonbons ou un sort - trick or treat
Un déguisement - costume
Un fantôme - ghost
Un vampire - vampire
Une sorcière - witch
Un squelette - skeleton
Un monstre - monster
Un chauve-souris - bat
Une maison hantée - haunted house
Une loup-garou - werewolf
Avoir peur - to be scared
Faire peur à quelqu’un - to scare someone
Le maquillage - makeup
Un masque - mask
Une goule - goule
Une citrouille-lanterne - jack-o-lantern
Hope you all have a very spooky month and get to listen to the Monster Mash to your heart’s content. Joyeux Halloween! 🎃🧡
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amillionlanguages · 4 years
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Hey there! I came across your 1 month language challenge. I am interested to join in. But can I do it on my Instagram platform? I will be sure to tag your Instagram account or this tumbler blog itself! Or if you have/know any other challenge going on Instagram related to 1 month language challenge? Please help me out here. Thanks~
Hi yeah for sure! I don’t have an instagram related to language learning content so I’d appreciate crediting my tumblr! I don’t know of any instagrams off hand, but if anyone knows of any accounts that could be helpful definitely leave a comment :D
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amillionlanguages · 4 years
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Hi! My name is Mariana, and I am trying to achieve my goal of becoming fluent in 5+ languages, and I've seen lots of people with similar goals. Thats why I am planning on creating a discord server for people to encourage each other, find advice and resources, and train with other students. Would you like to join and share with your followers? You can answer me in private for any suggestions.
That sounds super cool!!! I’d love to join :D
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amillionlanguages · 4 years
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compiling some resources for all those students who have to keep up on their own <3 this was originally meant for GCSE / A2 language level but is helpful for all i think
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amillionlanguages · 4 years
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1 Year of Languages Challenge Masterpost!
#1YearOfLangs is a challenge that I created in December of 2018 and did throughout 2019. I’ve had a lot of fun and have learned a lot throughout the year-long language learning challenge, and I’ll be doing it again in 2020 (with some modifications)! I wanted to create a central post with all the info about the challenge, so that’s what this is!
The general premise of the challenge is to learn a new language every month for a year! Yes, that’s a lot, but it helps a lot to learn what languages you’re interested in pursuing in the future. You can also see connections between different languages which is really interesting
Here’s the post with the original guidelines
Here’s my 2019 challenge recap post
Here are some alternative variations of the challenge (with different lengths of time spent on each language)
Here’s a list of resources for the challenge
Here’s a 1-month language learning prompt list for #1MonthOfLangs
Here’s 2+ months worth of language learning prompts
Here’s what a realistic day of the challenge looks like
Here’s what I’m planning to do for the challenge in 2020
I’ll try to keep this updated as I make more posts but here’s what I have so far! Hopefully y’all find this helpful lol let me know if there’s any specific resource that you’d like me to find or make!!!! I want to help you all as much as possible so PLEASE let me know if there’s any way that I can help support you and get you more resources!
All love <3
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amillionlanguages · 4 years
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Some awesome language learning resources (even if you’re not doing the challenge)!
Resources for the 1 Year of Languages Challenge
Link to the original challenge!
Duolingo
Busuu
Drops
Ba Ba Dum
Clozemaster
Wordbrewery
Wordeys
Mango
LinguaLift
Babbel
Udemy
Lingvist
Anki
Memrise
CoolJugator
Italki
HelloTalk
Fluentify
Coffee Strap
Lang-8
Readlang
LingQ
Mondly
Lingua.ly
LanguagePod101
Radio Lingua
FluentU
MindSnacks
101languages
LingoHut
LingoDeer
Beelinguapp
Are there any other language learning resources that you use? 
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amillionlanguages · 4 years
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Hey everyone! Today, I’d like to introduce y’all to the 1 Month of Languages Challenge! (aka the #1MonthOfLangs Challenge)
This can be done as a stand-alone challenge, or it can be seen as a subset of the #1YearOfLangs challenge that I created last year! You could do this challenge for each month within the year-long challenge, or you could just do one month of it, or any other possible variation of it! It’s totally up to you and definitely NOT mandatory! This is just to get you started and inspired!
The Guidelines:
Post every day with an update about how your language learning progress is going
Optional: Follow the prompt list below!
Dedicate at least 5 minutes every day of the month to learning your target language
Tag your posts with #1MonthOfLangs so I can see what you’re learning!
The Prompt List (optional):
Goals for the month
Vocab list: basic sayings
Why you chose to study your language of choice
Vocab list: greetings
Vocab list: numbers
Grammar: present tense
Vocab list: food
Write a menu
Vocab list: kitchen supplies
Vocab list: family
Grammar: sentence structure
Write 5 example sentences
Vocab list: colors
Vocab list: animals
What resources are you using to study your language of choice?
Your language learning routine
Vocab list: home
Write a few sentences about your home and family
Grammar: sentence structure of questions
Vocab list: clothing
Look up some random/interesting words
Vocab list: countries
Vocab list: places in town
Vocab list: careers
Grammar: past tense
Vocab list: emotions
Write a diary entry
Vocab list: adjectives
Tips for new (insert language of choice) learners
Recap of the month!
Good luck everyone! x
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amillionlanguages · 4 years
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Some language learning prompts for those of us with way too much free time right now
2+ Months of Language Learning Prompts!
Sometimes it can be tricky to know what to learn if you are teaching yourself a language. Here are some ideas for what you can focus on learning each day for the first two months of learning a new language! I formatted it so there is the general topic for the day and then in parentheses are some ideas to get you started but you can definitely learn a lot more than what I’ve written down! These are just to help generate some ideas!
This definitely would move pretty quickly if you covered all this material in 2 months so you could definitely spend more time on each topic if you need! This would require quite a bit of time each day in order to learn it all. This could totally work for a 4 or 6-month challenge where you spend 2 or 3 days on each of the topics I listed if you don’t have enough time to cover each topic in just one day!
Polite phrases (thank you, please, yes/no, you’re welcome, I’m sorry)
Introductory phrases (hi, my name is, I’m from, I speak, how are you?)
Pronouns (I, you, he, she, they, we)
Basic people vocab (girl, boy, man, woman, person, child)
Basic verbs in present tense (to eat, to drink, to walk, to read, to write, to say)
Sentence structure (how to form some basic sentences)
Negative sentences (I do not __)
Question words (who, what, where, when, why, how, how to form questions)
Numbers (0-20, 30, 40, 50, 100, 1,000, 1,000,000)
Time (hour, minute, half hour, reading the time)
Meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, dessert, appetizer)
Basic foods (apple, banana, rice, bread, pasta, carrot, soup, water)
More foods (beef, pork, fruit, vegetable, juice, coffee, tea, chocolate, cake)
Kitchen (stove, oven, kitchen, fridge, table, chair, bake, boil)
Eating supplies (knife, spoon, fork, plate, bowl, cup, glass)
More verbs (to make, to have, to see, to like, to go, to be able to, to want, to need)
Family (father, mother, son, daughter, aunt, uncle, cousin, grandmother, grandfather, parents, grandparents)
Transportation (car, train, plane, bus, bicycle, airport, train station)
City locations (apartment, building, restaurant, movie theater, market, hotel, bank)
Directions (north, south, east, west, right, left)
Adjectives (good, bad, smart, delicious, nice, fun)
More verbs (to give, to send, to wake up, to cry, to love, to hate, to laugh)
Colors (red, yellow, blue, green, purple, black, white, brown)
Emotions (happy, sad, calm, angry)
Physical descriptions (tall, short, blonde, brunette, redhead, eye color)
Body parts (arm, leg, hand, finger, foot, toe, face, eye, mouth, nose, ears)
Descriptors (rich, poor, beautiful, ugly, expensive, inexpensive)
Basic clothing (shirt, pants, dress, skirt, jacket, sweater, skirt, shorts)
Accessories (belt, hat, wallet, gloves, sunglasses, purse, watch)
More verbs (to keep, to smile, to run, to drive, to wear, to remember)
Animals (cat, dog, horse, cow, bear, pig, chicken, duck, fish)
More animals (turtle, sheep, fox, mouse, lion, deer)
Months (January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December)
Seasons (fall, winter, spring, summer)
Weather (sunny, cloudy, hot, cold, snowing, raining)
States of being (I’m hungry, I’m tired, I’m thirsty)
House (bedroom, living room, bathroom, stairs)
Furniture (bed, lamp, couch, door, window)
Electronics (phone, TV, computer, camera, radio, headphones)
Nature (tree, flower, plant, animal, grass, animal, outside, sky, sun, moon, clouds)
More verbs (to teach, to learn, to understand, to know, to listen, to hear)
School (classroom, elementary school, high school, college, student, class, grade, homework, test)
School subjects (math, science, English, art, music, chemistry, biology, physics)
School supplies (book, pencil, pen, paper, notebook, folder, backpack, calculator)
Classroom features (student desk, teacher desk, whiteboard, chalk, clock, bell)
Jobs (teacher, scientist, doctor, artist, dancer, musician)
More jobs (surgeon, manager, engineer, architect, lawyer, dentist, writer)
More verbs (to buy, to sell, to work, to ask, to answer, to dance, to leave, to come)
Comparisons (less than, more than, same, __er than)
Languages (French, German, Chinese, Russian, Spanish, English, Japanese)
Countries (France, Germany, China, Russia, Spain, Mexico, United States, Japan)
Religion (church, temple, mosque, to pray, Judaism, Christianity, Islam)
Past tense (I was, he ran, she wrote)
Hobbies (shopping, sports, soccer, chess, fishing, gardening, photography)
More verbs (to describe, to sleep, to find, to wish, to enter, to feel, to think)
Art (paint, draw, painting, gallery, frame, brush)
Morning routine (to wake up, to brush teeth, toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, soap)
Future tense (I will run, he will write)
TV + internet (online, internet, to watch TV, TV show, movie, documentary, cartoon)
More verbs (to look for, to stay, to touch, to meet, to show, to rent, to wash, to play)
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